Sunday, 24 February 2008

A vintage lampshade as a hat.....Excuse me, just having a bit of a surrealist moment!Well, no-one said my accessory of choice had to be of the fashiony type, I'm more interested in interiors anyway - so, just be thankful I couldn't lift the leather chair and hold a camera!

This was just the excuse needed to take a picture of the lovely lampshades I found in the local charity shop a while ago, £1.50 for a pair - bargain! They're the most gorgeous shade of green, and all ruchy-wrapped chiffon (that would be a technical term), and with tassels too. Don't think I'll be wearing them on the school run anytime soon.

And just out of interest has anyone else spent Saturday afternoon balancing on the bed, with a lampshade on their head trying to take a photo in focus? Aah, thought so, knew I wouldn't be the only one 'suffering' for their blog! ;)

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Who's stupid idea was it to try and make, rather than buy, all gifts this year? Oh - that would be me then!! Well, in the continual pursuit of the handmade, February is turning into a bit of a bugger! Between them, the girls have FIVE friends with birthdays this month, add that to the baby gift and my friends birthdays and I may have bitten off more than I intended!! So here's the progress so far...While I didn't actually make the hyacinths, above, I wrapped the pot in linen strips that I had stitched through and then coated in (far too much) P.V.A glue to hold in place. Not quite Squint, but not quite as expensive either!!

...Handmade baby card and birthday card...

...appliqued and hand embroidered laundry bag for new baby Skye.

And it was my Dad's birthday, but I couldn't sew a printer for his computer however hard I tried......

UPDATE: Bigski came in from school and announced ANOTHER birthday at the weekend!

(Hark, listen! Can you hear the manic laugh of a woman on the edge.......)

Sunday, 17 February 2008

I'm pretty sure I won't be the only one posting this link - I think it's being doing the 'virtual' rounds for a while.It's an Eddie Izzard sketch set in the Death Star Cafeteria acted by Lego figures.....Enjoy!http://www.maniacworld.com/death-star-cafeteria.html

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

It's half term here, and dare I say it SUNNY! So while visiting my parents in Somerset, a spot of fossil hunting at Kilve beach was in order. Now I grew up not 20 minutes from this amazing place and yet only visited it for the first time last summer! We must have driven past the turning about a million times as kids! That's Me (on the left-still the tallest one I'll think you'll find, if you measure very carefully), Bigski and Littleski - before they managed to cake themselves in mud, but it was okay they were travelling in Gramfie's car, not ours! ;)And why do the small people not feel the cold - I'm wearing three jumpers, two t-shirts and a vest (really!) and they end up in t-shirts, with me carrying their coats!

Thursday, 7 February 2008

I feel I should start this post with an apology," Sorry Sharon's homework is late, but the dog ate it and there was leaves on the line (works for any English transport system all the time) and then the sodding internet died!!!!"Okay, deep breath!So I was thinking really hard about this post, I mean I don't actually go out and purposefully collect anything.....except the obvious, you know - dust, grey hair, wrinkles, kids from school, 10 years worth of Living Etc in order under the bed.And then the internet died.So I couldn't post.So mostly this week, I've been collecting steam as I rant at my internet provider!!But what a boring picture that would make, so I've taken a pic of christmas decorations that are still on the mantelpiece, where they permantely live - just because I like them (I'm such a rebel, rock and roll all the way, that's me.....you can stop laughing now Cloudcakes)

The mad fish decorations are from Barcelona and the antique looking bauble from Brittany, neither of which were actually bought at Christmas, just in the 'I'm in a foreign country, I must buy a christmas decoration' thing that I do!

And I never realised until this moment I collected stuff before! On purpose!

That's weird! Not the collecting, the not realizing!

And after reading all the "This is ....what scares me" I didn't know I worried as much as I do either!

Friday, 1 February 2008

I thought I'd share these great calendars with you that I got for Christmas. Obviously, I meant to do it at the beginning of January, but better late than never!

The first calendar is from Laura Ashley and features, and I quote "illustrations that were produced in-house for Laura Ashley during the mid 1970's."How fabulous!

They remind me of when I first started working in the industry. These were the type of sketches that the designer would pass to the patterncutters before making the way around the sample room via sample cutter ( which was me at the time, only I called myself design room assistant to make it more glamorous - it didn't work) to sample machinist, before becoming a fully fledged garment in it's own right. It being the late 80's/early 90s there would have possibly been shoulder pads and lace collars involved - told you, glamour be my middle name!

The second calendar is called Wallpaper and surprisingly enough features wallpaper, retro wallpaper of course! It has no credits or dates to any of the papers but 60s/70s seems like a very safe bet!

I'm going to post a new image from each calendar every month (these being from January and February) to spread the joy and sharing, but just as a little tease, Decembers wallpaper is soooo worth the wait - poodle mermaids!!! Honestly!!

About Me

Hi! I have been experimenting with cloth and stitch forever, starting with dolls clothes,then via patterncutting in London for 15 years and I have recently discovered the joys of screenprinting. The result of combining the three is many lost hours and iris and lily handmade!